this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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830
CrowdStrike downtime apparently caused by update that replaced a file with 42kb of zeroes (twiiit.com)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
190 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

…according to a Twitter post by the Chief Informational Security Officer of Grand Canyon Education.

So, does anyone else find it odd that the file that caused everything CrowdStrike to freak out, C-00000291-
00000000-00000032.sys was 42KB of blank/null values, while the replacement file C-00000291-00000000-
00000.033.sys was 35KB and looked like a normal, if not obfuscated sys/.conf file?

Also, apparently CrowdStrike had at least 5 hours to work on the problem between the time it was discovered and the time it was fixed.

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[–] [email protected] 152 points 3 months ago (33 children)

If I had to bet my money, a bad machine with corrupted memory pushed the file at a very final stage of the release.

The astonishing fact is that for a security software I would expect all files being verified against a signature (that would have prevented this issue and some kinds of attacks

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (17 children)

Windows kernel drivers are signed by Microsoft. They must have rubber stamped this for this to go through, though.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This was not the driver, it was a config file or something read by the driver. Now having a driver in kernel space depending on a config on a regular path is another fuck up

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

isn't .sys a driver?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

So yes, .sys is by convention on Windows is for a kernel mode driver. However, Crowdstrike specifically uses .sys for non-driver files and this specifically was not a driver.

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